Working from home claiming for gas and electric etc

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Been working from home for several months now so want to claim for electricity and gas.

Question is how the chuff do i work out how much i can claim for / how much ive used? never claimed before for anything

[essayer]

Assuming you have a dedicated room for working in and you work from home every day

Add up electric, water, phone, broadband, council tax, mortgage interest or rent

Divide by the number of habitable (not kitchen) rooms in your house

Claim for that (although if you’re employed, your employer might have different rules)

https://www.gov.uk/expenses-if-youre-self-employed

Edited by essayer on Sunday 15th September 19:49

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Yeah im employed will see if they have any guides on what i can claim

[CzechItOut]

Who are you claiming from? If it is your employers, then they will most likely have a policy for how much you can claim.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

was just going to claim tax relief from hmrc rather than from the company like i said its all new to me i was just told i could do it

[Welshbeef]

You know what - aside from maybe the company paying you for the fibre connection - you’ve listed costs incurred for drying at home which would be £x, be prepared for the possibility for aid company “ok well we accept that but conversely we will calculate the petrol / ppm @ govt rates (or the company rates) to balance off against it.


I manage our gas and electric online and it gives a nice graphic bar chart by month going back two or so years since I joined them - the electric monthly cost ranges from £70-£74 year round (fixed unit and day rate for the term). Has amazingly May-end of sept is £7-12 pcm that’s a family of 5 hot water always on, when winter comes with UFH and radiators on the gas at worst goes to £70 a month (Feb and Mar).
My point is you state you’ve been working from home the last few month... ie the summer and late spring, the heating costs will be sold all and electric indifferent.

Now if it’s your own ltd company you could check out the sensible % that other ltd fellows charge without stepping over the line.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Sorry maybe should have said im now perm home based apart from time on client sites etc

[Welshbeef]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Sorry maybe should have said im now perm home based apart from time on client sites etc

Home based as in any miles you do from the house are claimable as the company expense?

If so many places I’ve worked in will either put in fibre as a business line into your house or fund your fibre

[Trustmeimadoctor]

yeah any miles from home i claim

[mikeiow]

One thing has stopped me ever doing this: if you decide to sell your property you may need to pay Capital Gains Tax which needs to be included on your Self Assessment.
This is because the ‘business’ part of the sale will not qualify for Private Residence Tax Relief.
This is due to your home no longer being fully exempt because an area is being used for business purposes.
Capital Gains Tax is applied to any increase in the value of the office area that may have resulted from the company’s occupation of it.

& yes, I'm quoting that from https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge/tax/working-fro... but that essentially was what I was told a good few years ago....

[Craigybaby69]

I think you can claim £4/week and then get a tax refund of 20 or 40% of that depending on your tax status, and can be backdated upto 4 years.... But I might be wrong.

[mikeiow]

Craigybaby69 said:

I think you can claim £4/week and then get a tax refund of 20 or 40% of that depending on your tax status, and can be backdated upto 4 years.... But I might be wrong.

& the potential for HMRC to turn around on any future sale and tell me “10% of your sale value is now subject to capital gains tax” is precisely why I chose to ignore it
Would more than wipe out any small gains....just didn’t seem worth it (to me)

[anonymous-user]

mikeiow said:

Craigybaby69 said:

I think you can claim £4/week and then get a tax refund of 20 or 40% of that depending on your tax status, and can be backdated upto 4 years.... But I might be wrong.

& the potential for HMRC to turn around on any future sale and tell me “10% of your sale value is now subject to capital gains tax” is precisely why I chose to ignore it
Would more than wipe out any small gains....just didn’t seem worth it (to me)

I work from home 4 days a week and I had never even thought about claiming for anything. The thought of having to do a tax return every year and having now read this has definitely put me off.

[essayer]

If you are employed then this is the HMRC position
https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/workin...

If you are self employed or a contractor etc then this is the position
https://www.gov.uk/expenses-if-youre-self-employed

I don’t see any obligation to compete a tax return in either case. If you structure some sort of rental agreement then different rules probably apply. Just claim the simplified or true rates.

Edited by essayer on Monday 16th September 09:35

[gazza5]

Claiming £4 a week for use of home as office will not make your house liable for Capital Gains Tax.

The £4 per week is instead of calculating gas, elec, council tax etc etc for portion of house used for work.

[devnull]

As a home worker, I've never thought it's worth nickel and diming the taxman for this sort of stuff.

[bmwmike]

Same here - WFH for over 10 years and don't claim anything for home. What I do claim is mileage from home to local office site (which I visit at my discretion) and any consumable expenses directly related to work (postage, notepads etc). I fund my own data connections etc.

[MrJuice]

My accountant has put through 4k a year for the last ten years, no questions asked by HMRC

For this 4k, I use a room exclusively for business work. I don't claim for furniture, internet, etc. Just the flat £80/week

[Eric Mc]

MrJuice said:

My accountant has put through 4k a year for the last ten years, no questions asked by HMRC

For this 4k, I use a room exclusively for business work. I don't claim for furniture, internet, etc. Just the flat £80/week

Are you running your own business or are you an employee? It makes a big difference to what you can claim.

[alistair1234]

If you are an employee then your employer can pay you up to £4 a week tax free, or you can claim tax relief on that amount from HMRC if they don't. I did the latter, they just adjust your tax code.